Iran Says It Is Now Running 3,000 Nuclear Centrifuges
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran Says It Is Now Running 3,000 Nuclear Centrifuges*
By Nasser Karimi
Associated Press
Monday, September 3, 2007; A12
TEHRAN, Sept. 2 -- Iran's president said Sunday that his country is now
running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program,
reaching a goal that could spur efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on
the Islamic republic.
The announcement appeared at odds with a report by the U.N. nuclear
watchdog Thursday that put the number closer to 2,000. The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that enrichment had slowed and that
Iran was cooperating with its nuclear probe, which could fend off calls
for a third round of sanctions.
"The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a
resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress
and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new
cascade every week," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks
posted on the state television Web site.
Iran had announced in April that it was operating 3,000 centrifuges, but
the IAEA said at the time that only 328 centrifuges were running at the
underground Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran.
In the latest report, drawn up by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the
organization said that close to 2,000 centrifuges were now enriching
uranium at Natanz, with another 650 being tested.
The figure of 2,000 represents a jump of several hundred since May, when
the IAEA last reported on Iran. Still, the rate of expansion is much
slower than a few months ago, when the country was assembling about 200
centrifuges every two weeks.
"The recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agrees with Iran's
approach and the dispute over Iran's nuclear case has ended,"
Ahmadinejad said. The IAEA report noted an increased willingness by the
Iranians to answer questions after years of stonewalling and was seen as
likely to check the push for new sanctions.
The U.N. Security Council has passed two sets of sanctions targeting
Iranian individuals and businesses involved in the country's nuclear and
missile programs. The resolutions also ordered countries to stop
supplying Iran with materials and technology for those programs.
U.N. officials have suggested that Iran slowed its program and increased
its cooperation with the agency's investigators to avert the new
sanctions. The report said Iran was continuing to produce negligible
amounts of nuclear fuel, far below the level needed for nuclear warheads.
Ahmadinejad's announcement Sunday appeared to mark a shift away from
that strategy.
Iran has said that its goal for the Natanz facility, the only site now
open to full monitoring by the IAEA, is to run 54,000 centrifuges,
enough for dozens of nuclear weapons a year.
Uranium gas, spun in linked centrifuges, can result in either
low-enriched fuel suitable for generating power or the weapons-grade
material that forms the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
U.S. officials accuse Iran of secretly trying to develop atomic weapons.
But Iran insists it wants to master the technology only to meet future
power needs and argues that it is entitled to enrich under a nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty provision giving all pact members the right to
develop programs for peaceful purposes.
Also, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday named
Mohammed Ali Jafari as the head of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The United States has said the corps is responsible for terrorist acts
as well as violence against U.S. forces in Iraq.